


First, Do No Harm

by BardicRaven



Series: The Physician & the Poisoner [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Assassination, F/F, Justice, Partners to Lovers, Vigilante Justice, poisoning in the name of justice, womaan's justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 12:58:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16219520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: Court Physician Phyllicia found Amaryllis Brooke in the poor quarter of the city and knew she had found the partner she'd been looking for. How? Because she was in the poor quarter. An unethical poisoner wouldn't be starving.





	First, Do No Harm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selden/gifts).



From the first time that Phyllicia saw her, she knew. By orders of the Queen, Phyllicia took her talents down into the city, down to the free clinic huddled in the poor quarter, every week for an afternoon, to help the poor, and, as Queen Reyna said, “To remember where we come from.”

If you had asked Phyllicia how she knew, she couldn’t have told you. It was something about her patient’s face, her hands, the way she lay on the examining bed. But it was something, and it was the answer to a prayer.

Phyllicia said quietly, as she came and took the patient’s wrist to check her pulse and sense her energy. “I know you are a poisoner.” As the woman began to struggle, she put the fingers of her other hand against the woman’s lips. “It’s all right. I won’t tell anyone. But I do have a proposal for you.” The woman stilled, awaiting her fate.

When Phyllicia had finished her work-up of the woman, she came back to the head of the bed and spoke briskly. “As I thought. There’s nothing wrong with you that isn’t due to poverty. As I said, I have a proposition for you.” The woman waited calmly, listening. “I think you are a poisoner with a conscience,” Phyllicia continued gently. “That’s part of why you’re in the condition you are. If you were unethical, there is no shortage of work for one such as you, is there?” The woman nodded once, short and sharp, before subsiding back into her stillness. “You are a Goodness-Goddess sent gift to me and this is what I have to say to you. I am looking for one such as you to help me in my work.” The woman pulled back, startled. “Yes, I need a poisoner. There are those who… contribute overmuch to my work. Mostly down here, but not always. You’d be surprised.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” was all the woman said, but Phyllicia knew there was an ocean of pain behind those few words. She only wondered if the woman’s knowledge was from her own experience or from that of others. Not that it mattered, for her purposes. A poisoner on her own was subject to all the laws of the land. A poisoner in the service of the Queen’s Physician, on the other hand, had an immunity which many would kill for.

In either sense of the word.

Phyllicia only hoped that it would be the case here. 

“You would work at my command, as well as in cases that you would bring to me and that I approve. You are free to refuse any case I offer to you, with the understanding that I will feel free to hire another if I believe the cause to be sufficiently just. I will listen to your counsel, but keep my own at the last.” At the shamed question she could see rising in the woman’s eyes, she added, “For the mundane things, you will receive full room, board, and clothing appropriate both to your work and to your place in the Court. Is that acceptable to you?”

The woman considered a moment, a thing that made Phyllicia pleased. Many would have seen only the ease that the offer promised and never cared about what had to be done to earn it. After the space of a few breaths, the woman looked her in the eyes, taking her measure, before nodding again.

“I’m your woman.” Her voice was quiet, a slight harshness to the back of it that Phyllicia suspected would vanish with her rise from poverty.

Phyllicia took the woman’s hand, brought it to her chest in the manner of a sealed pledge, and said. “It is done.” Then, “What is your name?”

“Amaryllis. Amaryllis Brooke.” The name suited her, Phyllicia decided. She did indeed sparkle, in a quiet way now, but in time, Pyllicia suspected her beauty and sparkle would grow to be the talk of the court. 

* * *

 And so it began. As the days stretched into weeks, months, years, the two womyn became two halves of a working whole, each balancing and counterbalancing the other in their work until neither one cared to remember how it had been before.

As well as their working relationship, which had been both hoped for and expected, there was another thing that was beginning to grow from a small stream into an ocean, and that was completely unexpected. Phyllicia realized that she was beginning to have feelings for Amaryllis. And not chaste, sisterly feelings either. No these were raw and strong and powerful, so powerful that they led her to fantasizing into her nights, when she went to sleep and when she woke up. And as many times as she took her hand to her sex, releasing those feelings in the shudders of her pleasure, as many times she woke up from dreams, just as wet and desiring, the echoes of orgasm fading in her mind as she returned to this world.

She did not speak of her feelings to Amaryllis. She did not know if Amaryllis returned her desire, and would not ruin what they had to find out. Desire was merely a feeling of the body after all, and as such could be and would be controlled. She’d seen too much unhappiness caused by unrequited lust to contribute to it herself.

And so things continued, and likely would have done so for quite some time, had it not been for the case which came into their care one day. A woman and her daughters, and what had been done to them unspeakable. Phyllicia and Amaryllis each did what was theirs to do, and when they were done, the woman and her daughters were patched up as best they could and taken to a sacred place of womyn far away, and the man lay in the morgue, the Queen’s Justice having been dealt, quicker and cleaner than the man deserved for all he’d done.

When they came back to their rooms that night, it was with the hot, heady energy of victory in the air. Phyllicia took Amaryllis in her arms, swung her around, intending to put her down, but somehow found herself kissing Amaryllis instead, and it turned out that was all right, because Amaryllis was kissing her back, just as passionately, and in fact, in the half-a-thought left to her, she was pretty sure that Amaryllis had started it, and then it was a frenzied dance across the room, falling onto the nearest bed, unmindful of whose it was, and then there was an anatomy lesson of a far different sort, far more pleasurable, given and taken measure for measure.

* * *

 The next morning, they woke in each other’s arms, still in the same bed they’d collapsed in the night before. Phyllicia threw back the covers, started to get out of bed, when Amaryllis stopped her with a firm hand on her arm.

“If you say one word about regret and/or the inappropriateness of what we’ve done, if I hear one word about how you shouldn’t have done this, I’ll… I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do, but I guarantee you, you won’t enjoy it. And before you ask, I regret nothing about last night.” She seized Phyllicia’s face, forced her to look at her. “Not. One. Thing. So you’ve nothing to blame yourself for.”

“But… it WAS inappropriate. Unprofessional of me to take advantage….” Phyllicia began.

“Advantage?” One slender eyebrow went towards the heavens. “As I recall, I kissed you first. Not that it matters.”

“Still...”

“Still nothing. The only question is… did you enjoy what we did last night?”

“You know I did.” Her voice dropped, became husky with desire at the memory.

“Then that’s all that matters.” Amaryllis considered her lover. “Except to know… would you like to do it again?”

Phyllicia took a long moment, studying Amaryllis, her face, her body, her carriage, to make sure she meant it, that the offer was made from love and desire alone, untainted by anything else, then finally nodded. “You know I would.” Soft words that carried a lifetime’s worth of loneliness in them.

“Good.” Amaryllis held out her arms. “Then come here. You’re letting the bed get cold.” When Phyllicia looked to protest, she continued, “Everyone and everything else will wait. You serve the world, lover. It’s okay to take a few moments for yourself. For us. Celebrate our new condition.”

Consideration again, then abruptly, Phyllicia slid back into bed, pulling the covers back over her as she went. “Excellent diagnosis, Amaryllis. We’ll make a physician out of you yet.”

Amaryllis snorted. “I doubt that. But I’ll remain your loyal poisoner for as long as you want me.”

“Always?” Half-teasing, half-serious.

“Always.” Amaryllis bent down and sealed her words with a kiss, starting their lives anew.

**Author's Note:**

> A second story in this Universe was gifted to me, given to another person in this Challenge.
> 
> If you'd like to read a little bit more of the adventures of Phyllicia and Amaryllis, go here for 'Second, Remember Life': archiveofourown.org/works/16256468
> 
> After reveals, the two will be linked, but for now, clickfor more story!
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> FSEA


End file.
